Halo: The Fall of Reach
Halo: The Fall of Reach is the first Halo ''book in the main series, as well as the first ''Halo ''book ever made. It was written by Eric Nylund and published by Del Rey Books. The book is a prequel to the events of ''Halo: Combat Evolved, and a midquel of Halo Reach. The book was released on October 30, 2001, just before the release of the first game in the series, Halo: Combat Evolved. It follows the events of the Fall of Reach, mostly from the point of view of John-117. The book was reportedly finished in seven weeks, and became a Publisher's Weekly ''best seller with nearly 200,000 copies sold in the United Kingdom and United States. The novel was reissued on August 3, 2010 by Tor Books, with many of the typos and mistakes present in the original being ironed out; the reissue was also given a new cover art. In addition, a comic book adaptation series titled ''Halo: Fall of Reach, comprising of three book arcs was published by Marvel Comics and 343 Industries, starting with Boot Camp on September 14, 2010. Recently, released with Halo 5 Guardians, was a Halo: The Fall of Reach Animated Series, with an animated version of the opening section of the book. Story Synopsis The book begins on the planet Jericho VII on February 12, 2535, and reveals the Spartans as a whole, as well as their purpose. As the seemingly unstoppable Covenant war machine moves into place to glass Jericho VII, Spartan Red and Blue Teams are sent to prevent the destruction of the planet. The Spartans manage to kill a thousand Grunts and even take down a Covenant airstrike with fougasses. However, soon the situation in space deteriorates, and the Spartans are forced to retreat before the surface of Jericho VII is glassed. The story then flashes back to 2517, with Dr. Catherine Halsey and Lieutenant Junior Grade Jacob Keyes on board the Han, a UNSC diplomatic shuttle. Their mission is to identify a potential candidate, John, for Halsey's SPARTAN-II Program. Dr. Halsey finds John in a school playground in Elysium city on Eridanus II. Here, she tests if he is good enough to be a Spartan. Using a coin, she tests John's reflexes by flipping the coin in the air and having him identify the side it will land on. John catches and correctly identifies the side: the eagle. During this time, Halsey gives John the coin, which is later taken from him. Later on in the plot, John, and several other chosen candidates, have been abducted from their respective worlds and inducted into the SPARTAN-II Program. Here, it is shown in detail the brutal indoctrination and training regime that John and his fellow Spartans are put through. Chief Petty Officer Franklin Mendez trains the Spartan-IIs, showing them the many necessary values of a soldier (eg. courage, teamwork, skill, etc.) while Déjà teaches them history, mathematics, and physics. After a daring training mission in the wilds of Reach, where the young Spartans regroup and escape with pieces of a map that they all put together and stole a Pelican back to base, where John-117 is made squad leader of the remaining Spartans. When the Spartans turn fourteen, they undergo intense biological genetic augmentations, such as effectively increasing their strength by three times, drastically increasing reaction times, making their bones practically indestructible, increasing blood flow to the eyes so that they can see in the dark, and other various improvements. However, the augmentation process is brutal and ruthless, and of the 75 Spartans, less than half emerge still fit for combat; the others either died or were horribly disfigured by the augmentation process. The Spartans are then issued orders to capture Colonel Robert Watts, an Insurrectionist leader and UNSC defector in the Eridanus asteroid belt on an asteroid called Eridanus Secundus. John leads a small team, which manages to capture Watts and bring him back to ONI for interrogation. John is wounded during this mission and is subsequently awarded a Purple Heart. On February 3, 2525, first contact is made with an alliance of alien forces that refer to themselves as the Covenant. On that day, a single Covenant warship exterminates the entire surface population of the Outer Colony of Harvest. Three CMA warships, the destroyer Heracles and the frigates Arabia and Vostok, are sent to investigate this incident, initiate first engagement protocols and attempted contact. After failing in that, the ships engaged the Covenant ship in battle, and were subsequently routed. Only one, the Heracles, manages to return to Reach, having been badly damaged. By December of the same year, the UNSC has mobilized a massive fleet under the command of famed war hero Vice Admiral Preston Cole, with orders to reclaim the Harvest colony and stop the Covenant advance. Cole's fleet manages a victory at Harvest, but at a high cost - two thirds of his ships were destroyed. Despite significant tactical brilliance on the part of human commanders, Covenant technology guarantees a three to one kill/loss ratio in most space battles. One by one, the Outer Colonies begin to fall, and by 2536, all have been destroyed. To protect the location of Earth, Vice Admiral Cole establishes the United Nations Space Command Emergency Priority Order 098831A-1, more commonly known as the Cole Protocol. If any Covenant forces are present, selective purges of databases on all ship based and planetary data networks are to be activated. When human forces are forced into retreat, they must not execute a slipspace jump in the direction of Earth, or any major population center, even if this forces them to jump without the necessary navigational calculations (a "blind jump"). If such a jump is not possible, and if capture is imminent, the commanding officer must order a self-destruct. The onboard ship AI construct, normally imperative to navigation and tactical decisions, must either be destroyed or removed.